Kenza Drider stood defiantly outside Notre Dame, adjusting her niqab to reveal only a glimpse of her eyes. Scores of police with a riot van and several lorries stood by as she and another woman in a niqab staged a peaceful protest for the right "to dress as they please". On the first day of France's ban on full Islamic face-coverings, this was the first test.

Two local Sharia laws in Indonesia's Aceh province violate rights and are often enforced abusively by public officials and even private individuals, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The country's central government and the Aceh provincial government should take steps to repeal the two laws, Human Rights Watch said.

Wael Lutfi, assistant chief editor of the Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Yousuf, criticized Egyptian society for forcing women to wear the hijab even if this conflicts with their world view. In order to present the problem from a woman's point of view, Lutfi writes in the first person feminine and relates the stories of women who wear the hijab for fear of being ostracized if they do not.

The Italian mayor behind a campaign to ban tiny miniskirts from his seaside town will find out tonight whether his plan has won the backing of the council. Luigi Bobbio, the mayor of Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples, is adamant that his proposal does not constitute a full ban on miniskirts. He points out that miniskirts will be allowed – as long as they cover women's underwear. The proposal is one of many designed to help "restore urban decorum and facilitate better civil coexistence".

In Chechnya there is official support for attacks on women when they are considered to have ‘flouted’ Islamic rules by not wearing a headscarf or covering up enough. Tanya Lokshina listened to some of the women’s despairing accounts.